Business writing can consist of things such as business plans, reports outlining research findings, e-mails, letters, technology reviews and funding applications. Whatever type of business writing you’re involved in, the following 6 quick business writing tips will help you:
1. Know Your Purpose
Whatever you’re writing, it is highly likely you have a purpose for doing so. You need to communicate a message to a person or a group internally in your organisation, or externally to clients, suppliers and partners. Whoever the recipient, ensure you know why you are communicating, so that you can then craft a message that will get to the point swiftly.
2. Be Concise
When writing text for business purposes, be concise. Remember, the person receiving your message is busy and what you are sending is something else that will end up on his or her plate. Therefore, write in short, clear sentences. If what you’re writing is a longer piece and is full of paragraphs, re-read what you have wrote and see if what you’ve wrote in a paragraph could be covered in a sentence or two.
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3. Write for the Audience
When you’re writing at work, always communicate with the recipient in mind. For instance, when writing a letter to a potential prospect ensure your copy is informative, yet highlights the pain points or desires of the client clearly, and how you can help persuasively.
4. Get a Colleague to Read
If what you’re writing is sensitive (think of getting back to a disgruntled customer or politely declining to take on more work than you can manage here), after you’ve crafted your text, ask a colleague to read it, and get his or her opinion on what type of reaction it evokes in them.
If it is the reaction you were looking for, then you’ve got it right. If not, change your text until it reads in a way that will get you the response needed from the reader.
5. Proofread Before You Send
Have you ever received an e-mail from a colleague or client, or boss and it was either not clear, lacking sentence structure or grammar and had spelling mistakes? We all have! And with the constant use of smartphones and tablets, this issue has got worse. However, don’t be the guilty party in such instances.
Bad writing can leave lasting impression. Just one poorly written message by you to another team or even worse, sent to the premises your customer can impact your credibility. Always check your work for typos and spelling mistakes. Read what you’ve wrote a few times if you have to. Again, if you do struggle with writing, just get a colleague to take a look at your writing for you, and correct any errors before you forward on your business document.
6. Practice
You can always improve your business writing. Practice writing letters, e-mails, business plans and so on for imaginative audiences. Think of the messages you want to convey. Then, put yourself into the shoes of the recipient and craft your copy. Once complete, read what you’ve written and reflect on whether your writing gets the response you want.
Image credit: reynermedia on flickr and reproduced under Creative Commons 2.0[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://writingtipsoasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/hv1.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Hiten Vyas is the Founder and Managing Editor of eBooks India. He is also a prolific eBook writer with over 25 titles to his name.[/author_info] [/author]